Monday, May 23, 2011

4 to the Gold Cup, Plus Kamara Called Up

Last week Peter Vermes said that 5 Sporting KC players would be called up for this summer's Gold Cup. Today we found out that only 4 were actually called up. Roger Espinoza and Craig Rocastle we'd heard about last week. Today we learned the other two official call ups. Stephane Auvray and Shavar Thomas were the other two called up. Those two are not incredibly surprising, Auvray has captained Guadeloupe for the last few years, and Thomas captained Jamaica to the Digicel Caribbean Championship over the winter. The four are set to miss at least 3-4 matches depending when they leave. Grenada has a friendly against Antigua and Barbuda on Friday the 27th, and Honduras plays El Salvador on the 29th. I believe Jamaica also has a friendly before the Gold Cup starts. So at least 3 of the players appear set to miss the Colorado, Toronto, Chicago home opener, and Dallas games while at the Gold Cup. Players could miss more if they advance past the group stage.

The one player of Vermes' five that didn't make it, was Teal Bunbury. Bunbury was left off of the USA roster when it was announced today. The US brought in three forwards, Juan Agudelo, Jozy Altidore, and Chris Wondolowski. The surprises along with Wondolowski were Freddy Adu and Robbie Rogers getting calls up. In response to why Bunbury wasn't called up, Bob Bradley said "he hasn't been as sharp as we would like so far in the season."

You can't argue with that logic, as since his brace against Vancouver Bunbury has been virtually invisible in many of the games since. He's struggled in the target forward role that Vermes has wanted him to play. He's certainly not out of the picture, but hopefully this will be the motivation to get him to get back to a competitive level.

Last week I also mentioned Kei Kamara's potential call-up for Sierra Leone and the potential issues for the country with the FA and the sports ministry at odds over who is the coach. It appears that Kamara has been officially called up based on his comments on Twitter today. Now whether that's a change from the announcement last week or not I don't know. But if Kamara truly is called up, he'll miss game in Toronto on the 4th of June.